Are we back to speaking normally yet? Reason I ask is after a kick to the nuts like that on Sunday, you could be forgiven for being a little high-pitched for most of the week. But if nothing else, that game brought a vague problem into full clarity. The immutable law of averages has reared its ugly head lately. This team made its living with amazing comebacks in the 4th quarter. Pom Pom Pete has always admonished us when we dare to suggest that maybe scoring more points in the first half wouldn’t necessitate these 4th quarter miracles. Going to 2 straight Super Bowls certainly is ample evidence that he’s right. However, starting with this past Super Bowl, cracks have certainly developed in that theory. In each of the Seahawks last 4 losses, they’ve had the lead in the 4th quarter only to see it vaporize. The big plays are no longer there, and that’s both on offense and defense. When you’re depending on miracles, I hate to say it, sometimes they don’t come. It’s almost to the point of counting on winning the lottery as your retirement plan.

This latest loss has the 12’s picking sides and that’s never good. You’ve got one side blaming the defense for this. Pretty simple to see why. The offense didn’t give up 17 points in the 4th quarter. The other side blames the offense. I get that too. When your last 5 drives result in a total of 42 yards and 5 punts, it’s easy to lay blame at the foot of Darrell Bevell and the offense. Personally, I have to lean on the side that blames the defense for no other reason than the amount of money that’s been spent to put that defense together. As Hugh Millen has said, we’ve got a Wal-Mart offensive line with receivers from Target. Using that analogy, you’d have to say we at least thought we had a defense from Nordstrom. After Sunday, I don’t even think Nordstrom would take them back.

But I digress. It’s a new week and the Seahawks whipping boy, the Carolina Panthers, come to town. Time to get healthy against the most fraudulent 4-0 team the NFL has probably ever seen. We go back to an oldie and but a goodie this week. Let’s preview through the antics of Captain Oveur, Ted Striker, and Rumack in Airplane!

“Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.” You could be forgiven for going back to your glue-sniffing habit after that game on Sunday. After Bobby scooped and scored, we all knew it was over. This defense doesn’t give up 17 point leads. Even if they did, the offense had been performing halfway decently and could certainly be counted on to slam the door shut. Alas, we all know what happened.

“Joey, have you ever been in a…in a Turkish prison?” It might not be that bad, but Derrick Coleman might be heading for Kent, and that’s not much better. If you set up a pool, wrote each Seahawk’s name on a piece of paper, and made people pick out of the hat for the next Seahawk that would be arrested, I think you’d be really disappointed to get Coleman since there’d be no way you’re getting that money. Marshawn? Sure, we’ve seen that before. Bruce Irvin? Yep, there’s always been a screw loose there. Frank Clark? Obviously, given recent events. But Coleman? That one shocked me.

“You ever been in a cockpit before? No sir, I’ve never been up in a plane before. You ever seen a grown man naked?” Now, the Panthers get on their plane and head out to their house of horrors known as CenturyLink Field. I’m too lazy to look this up, but I don’t think they’ve ever won in Seattle. We certainly know they haven’t won here in the last 10 years. Yeah, you in the back, I can hear you. I know they’re 4-0. Would you like to know who those 4 are? Jacksonville, Houston, New Orleans, and Tampa. I’d call that a JV squad, but that’s an insult to anyone who plays on the junior varsity.

“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?” If you did, the newest one might just star Thomas Rawls. There was a textbook definition of breakout performance. His 160 yards was the highest single-game total since a guy named Shaun Alexander made a living of getting 7 yards and running out of bounds. Even more impressive was the fact that the offensive line was able to make those holes for him to hit to get those yards. For the first 2.5-3 quarters, they actually looked like an NFL offensive line. Naturally when it counted in the 4th quarter, they reverted back to what they had been. Thankfully our original gladiator looks to be back for this game. Offensive line play matters slightly less when you can just run over people.

“Striker, listen and you listen close: flying a plane is not different than riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes.” I’m imagining a similar conversation taking place with our $20 million man this week. I know it’s not an original hot take, but Russell looks tentative. I suppose I’d be tentative if I was being protected by the swinging saloon doors that is this offensive line. However, there are many times, particularly in the last few games, where he’s had about 4 seconds to get rid of the ball but doesn’t do it. And it’s not just because his receivers aren’t getting open because they are. He’s not at the level of Chuck Knoblauch who basically had to retire because he forgot how to throw from second to first, but can we get a decent sports psychologist to take him aside and snap him out of this?

“He’s all over the place! 900 feet…up to 1300 feet. What an asshole!” Sorry Bevell, but the shoe fits. You are all over the place. The one thing you seem unable to do is convince the offense to play with any kind of tempo unless it’s the final 2 minutes of the half. We all remember Mike Holmgren preaching tempo. Bevell apparently wasn’t in the congregation. The response we get? Well, it possibly puts the defense back on the field too quickly. Oh really? There’s not much difference in 3 minutes where you ran 3 plays and punted versus when you run 8 plays in 3 minutes and punted. Defenses that aren’t allowed to substitute because you’re running plays every 20 seconds make mistakes and are out of position. Think that might be to the offense’s advantage?

“Extremely serious. It starts with a slight fever and dryness of the throat. When the virus penetrates the red blood cells, the victim becomes dizzy, begins to experience an itchy rash, then the poison goes to work on the central nervous system, severe muscle spasms, followed by the inevitable drooling. At this point, the entire digestive system collapses accompanied by uncontrollable flatulence until finally the poor bastard is reduced to a quivering wasted piece of jelly.” Hey Newton, you quivering wasted piece of jelly. Welcome back to your worst nightmare known as the 12th Man. I see you went to the Tom Coughlin School of Douchbaggery and decided Seahawks fans needed a little extra prodding for Sunday by trying to say CenturyLink is just like every other stadium. I don’t know if the noise can cause uncontrollable flatulence, but the first time Michael Bennett comes ‘round the corner and is bearing down on you, we won’t blame you if a small shart is emitted.

“Nervous? Yes. First time? No, I’ve been nervous lots of times.” Ok, I’m guilty. I’m a little nervous about this game. That law of averages is bugging me. The Hawks have beat the Panthers so many times in a row, many times in incredibly close games, that it makes one nervous that those odds are bound to turn the other way.

“Where did you get that dress, it’s awful, and those shoes and that coat, jeeeez!” And then I remember who we’re going up against. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. We’re not losing to this…

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